Mr. Speaker, of course when a minister is faced with a situation like that he or she has to realize he or she is a minister at the same time.
Members write all the time to commissions recommending somebody or asking that a file be studied. A minister has to be more careful. That is why I said the Minister of Canadian Heritage should have been more careful, but he was acting in good faith as a member of Parliament. His letter was very clear. He asked for due process. He was not asking for a favour.
In reality what happened was that when the decision was made the person he wrote for did not receive the permit. In fact somebody else got the permit, so the letter did not help at all.